When is wood small enough to stop laying flat and using stickers? I just bought a bunch of wood, some pretty small. Is there a time when you don’t have to sticker it and can stand it on end, or stack it on it’s side?Hoping for the best, here’s how I stacked everything:

11 replies so far

Seems to me stickers are your personal choice for any wood at anytime!

Might be missing something, but what’s the concern?

Unless there are exotics I do not keep small pieces, it simply does not pay, it bogs you down.An underlying message from many LJs is to rethink, organize, clean up, and be more effcient, safer, much more productive… and happier.

Have never had a problem with short pieces stored flat or up. Just like books on a shelf, keep them square and straight, allowing air to circulate.

A lot of small pieces are stacked flat, it depends on it’s moisture content. If it’s wet or green then I would use stickers of the same species of wood to prevent stains from woods that react to one another.

I cut pieces for picture frames about 2 months ago, they were around 6% moisture, couldn’t do any more with them at the time, stacked them neatly, came back last week and all of them have either a bow, cup, or twist in them, most of them a 1/4”! So now I have expensive firewood…

the small piecesyou have on the shelfs shuoldn´t be a problem if they are kiln dryedand you have a heated shop but it´sallso depends on how much moisture there is inyour area general if there is a lot I wuold stack them with stickers and have some airflow thruogh it so the moisture is moved away from it and if you got a moisturemeter you can check the wood if it´s down to abaut 6%then you are allright and when you get new wood in the shop you shuold let it be settled for 2-3 weeks so it has climatisies to you shop before using ithope this help you

I agree with Dennis.Seasonal humidity variation in your area can be a deciding factor. If it’s always humid, no big deal. If it’s always drier than a popcorn fart…no big deal. But some areas can have a large variation from Summer to Winter(like where I live). Here…stickering every layer is the only decent way to keep the EMC where it belongs.

if it is long boards you will have in the shop or another place don´t forget to put sometingheavy on the top layer of the stack and let the last layer be some scrap/cheap wood of course let the heavy thing be right abow the the nedly stacked stickers , every stickers have to be excacly abow each other it´s the only way you can prevent twist an other things

John, Storage is always what works best for you and the area of your shop, experiment. Your picture frames may have had internal stresses that show up slowly after you cut them causing them to distort. If you are going to have long periods of time between cutting and using then cut WELL over size and do the final sizing just before you assemble them. Just a thought…